West Aurora advances past Glenbard South
For a while it looked like Glenbard South might overcome a bad first quarter Monday in the opening round of the Bill Neibch Falcon Classic at Wheaton North.
West Aurora made sure the Raiders didn’t.
The Blackhawks held off the Raiders 49-44 to advance to Tuesday’s second round against Hersey at 3 p.m. Glenbard South meets Willowbrook in the consolation bracket at 10:30 a.m.
“This is the first in a long time, so we’re proud of them,” West Aurora coach Connie Siljendahl said of her Blackhawks’ advancement into the winners’ bracket.
“It feels great,” West Aurora senior Alexis Nelson said. “We’re really planning on taking this to the championship game and getting a trophy. We think we have the potential to do it.”
West Aurora (5-6) jumped out to a 14-4 lead on sophomore Erin Jacobsen’s first-quarter 3-pointer and led 16-6 after one quarter.
“That’s what we were hoping,” Siljendahl said. “We tell them we have to feel comfortable, and the only way to feel comfortable is to get on them right away and put pressure on them right away, and they did. I was very proud of them.”
“We did pretty good at the beginning, but we could have done a lot more,” Nelson said. “The press really wasn’t working very well, but second half we fixed it.”
The West Aurora press seemed to be working well from the Glenbard South perspective. The Raiders turned the ball over 8 times in the first quarter, totaling 22 for the game.
“We battled,” Raiders coach Julie Fonda said. “They’re a very aggressive team, and we beat ourselves in the first quarter. We shied away from the aggressiveness and weren’t going to the hoop, and opportunities where we definitely had chances to score, we were very shy and complacent about it.”
Glenbard South came back quickly in the second quarter, tying the score at 18 after just two minutes on a pair of Patrice Hicks free throws, then taking a lead on a Tomei Ball putback.
“Our second quarter, obviously, was very good,” Fonda said, “and our second half was decent, but we beat ourselves in the first quarter; outscored 16-6 and we lose by 5. We don’t have the luxury to wait and see before we decide to play.”
West Aurora regained the lead, 29-27 at halftime, and managed to hold off the Raiders (7-6) in the second half.
“What helped was we had scorers from across the board,” Siljendahl said. “Not one person was just scoring, and that helps us out a lot. Liz (Skaggs) stepped up and we had some here and there and (Nelson) got 17. That really helps when the whole floor is helping out.”
Skaggs added 10 points, 9 rebounds and 4 steals.
Sophomore Stefani Bazigos came off the bench to score 16 points for Glenbard South, and Hicks added 11 points, 9 rebounds and 5 steals.
“She did do a nice job coming off the bench,” Fonda said of Bazigos, who is getting over a brief illness. “She’s kind of thrown to the fire against a really great defensive team. She’s got to get more confident with putting the ball in her left hand and being able to go both directions, but she was aggressive in her scoring and I can’t ask for anymore off the bench like that.”